Fighting Females

[JVG]

Hey i recently picked up a couple of leos from a friend, there was 5 females all together and i bought 2 of em, and now that theyre in my setup, which is a 20gal, with 2 hides, one is pretty big, and a good size underground damp hide they are fighting. the larger one went down into the damp hide and every time she came out the other would run as far away as possible and there was some tail wavin goin on to, then after the smaller one was sitting near the damp hide and the other came out and sneaked up and bit onto her tail and wouldnt let go and flipped her over and stuff, i seperated them, then put them back in with some crix and they seemed fine, there was no aggression or anything, then the big one wne tback down in the damp hide and the smaller one was near it again with its tail over the oppening and she bit onto it aain and pulled her down into the hide and i could hear them fighting so i seperated them again.

Im prolly goin to trade the aggressor for another anyways, but im wondering why they would be fighintg(i havent heard about to much of this between females) and how i could pssoibly prevent this n the future or stop it if it happens again.
thanks

[Mystic Lizzards]

they may be male unless you can say for sure they are female

[JVG]

as far as i kno they are female for sure

[clint545]

I would definitly double check the sex on all of them.
How big a difference of size are all of them. If you're keeping the 5 together, they should be about the same size so that there is no bullying, and the smaller ones get stressed, or worse, hurt.
I seen my leos from time to time mistake anothers tail for food. does this happen only at feeding time?
You should really sex them again, and then go from there.

[DragnDrop]

How much size difference is there between the two of them? If they're mature and you're sure they're defintely females, then assume there's a personality conflict and they might never get along with each other. Females usually get along, but like humans, some just don't like each other. I've had a few females who hated some or all the other girls, loved the males though. All I could do was keep them separated.

[BoidKeeper]

I once had a "hot" female. She was incubated too warm and hatched out a female with the attitude of a male. When ever I put my male in with her he would chase her but she quickly turned on him and laid a beating on him a few times. She was in deed a she but had the attitude of a male.
Cheers,
Trevor

[JVG]

Well ive only got 2 of em, and they are female, the person i got them from had 5females and 2 males and sold me two of the females, and kno the two of them were housed together along with others for a long time with no problems, as for size difference, there is one, but not a huge onemaybe an inch or two tops, and ive only had them for a day and seperated them after the third attack, after the first atatck, i put them back together with food so tey would both eat and possibly not mistake the tale for food and they were fine for bout 20 mins then the bigger one attacked again

[peterm15]

an inch shouldnt be a major deal mine are about 2" apart with no probs.... but what about beefiness... like weight... how much of a difference there...

[JVG]

the bigger one is a bit beefier yah but nothin huge

[Slannesh]

2" might not be a lot to you but considering a big leo is 8" it's a lot for a gecko.

How big of an enclosure are we talking about here? how many hides and temps and what not? If you friend was housing 5 together at once i'm assuming it was in a pretty large area, it's entirely possible that your new geckos are having territorial conflicts due to being in a new space. As others have said some females just aren't well suited to living with other females. One of my girls, I named her Rippie (After the gator.. chomp chomp chomp ;) ) I had to seperate from my other females because she has the strongest feeding response i've ever seen on a leo. She literally jumps at her food and unfortunately doesn't have the best aim, she's grabbed a tail and in the event that caused me to seperate them my albino female's face. Now i'm fairly sure it was just a case of food aggression but didn't want to chance having any of my leos hurt so I seperated them.

but back to your leos;

1) How big is the enclosure, floor space wise?

2) How many hides?

3) Temps?

[JVG]

K well, the 5 werent originally housed together(my mistake), there were 5 females, 2 males and blizzard split between two good size cages,

i took the aggressor back and got another that was fer sure living originally with other before and i havent had any problems since, but am still curiouse bout the others to prevent this.

my setup is a 20 gallon tank, play sand for the substrate, on the cool side i have a water dish in one corner, and a food dish in the other corner that has calcium powder in it unless im giving mealworms or wax worms, and there is a small hide here, alsoi have a tupperware container with a corner of the lid cut out , with soil and sphagnum moss in it, this is my damp hide and is underthe substrate, so all u see is the hole thats cut out for them to go in and out the rest is hidden by the substrae, i did this to leave them more land space and still give them a good damp hide, then i have a larger hide, large exoterra hide, thats mostly on the hot side, the sides slant down and the leos just walk all over it and climb on it so there is no lost land space here, and in the corner of the hot side under the heat lamp is a log/branch that slants up and turns and goes up a bit more which i have already seen them using, so the only lost landspace si where this branch is, the small hide(which the climb over to), the two dishes and the hole for the container, so there is plenty of space, and numerous hides.

For heat i have normal 60watt bulb, which brings to the daytime temp to somewhere round 87, , its one of those thermostats that have the different colours around what the temp is so its around 87(where the green is), then at night i had a 50 wat exo-terra night-globulb(blue) which brought the night time down but not to much, i work the graveyard shift so i havent had a chance t observe how lo but when i was testing it was usually round 80,but this bulb after one nightof use so illbe takin it back inhopes of credit, im now using a 40watt blue lightbulb, and this is for the wamr side, not sure bout the cool side,

id like to get a pic up but no cam, im trying to find one tho, o and these leos are fer sure females, thanks so far

[Topaz]

Hi, there should be more than two hides for a pair, try having two humid hides and two dry hides in the tank, that way they wont fight for any hiding spots. Remember, tehy don't have to be large, some leos like it when they can wedge in and feel safe witht eh walls around them, but of course able to turn around and come out easily!

Good luck!